Your Child Flips You Off-Tough Discipline & De-Escalating

[0] Hey moms, we talk on the podcast all the time about making self -care a priority, because when you're tired and you don't feel like yourself, it's hard to be that calm mom you want to be.

[1] That's why I'm excited to introduce Happy Mammoth, creators of all natural products such as hormone harmony.

[2] Hormone harmony contains science -backed herbal extracts called adaptogens.

[3] Adaptogens help the body adapt to any stressors, like chaotic, hormonal changes that happen naturally throughout a woman's life.

[4] Hormone harmony is for any woman with symptoms of hormonal changes, such as poor sleep and racing thoughts, even night sweats and feeling tired all the time.

[5] I feel like myself again.

[6] That's what women say over and over again in reviews of hormone harmony.

[7] It's time to feel like yourself again, moms.

[8] For a limited time, you can get 15 % off on your entire first order.

[9] at happy mammoth .com with the code calm at checkout.

[10] That's happy mammoth .com with the code calm.

[11] So if you follow us on Instagram, you'll notice that all of our videos are filmed from mountain peaks we've hiked, and what powers me is my AG1.

[12] For years, I've enjoyed the same morning routine.

[13] I mix one scoop of AG1 with water, shake it, and the first thing I put in my body is 75 vitamins, probiotics, prebiose, and whole food sourced ingredients.

[14] Check out a special offer at drinkag1 .com slash calm.

[15] AG1 lets you build a healthy daily habit that takes less than one minute and promotes gut health, supports immunity, and boosts energy.

[16] AG1 is a supplement I trust to provide the support my body needs daily.

[17] And that's why I'm excited that AG1 continues to be our partner.

[18] If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with.

[19] with AG1.

[20] Try AG1 and get a free one -year supply of vitamin D3 and K2 and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase exclusively at drinkag1 .com slash calm.

[21] That's drinkag1 .com slash calm.

[22] Check it out.

[23] So let's just establish this right off the bat before we get to a really difficult situation.

[24] I like tough discipline.

[25] I like tough, firm, matter of actions that you take very few words.

[26] I like doing simply what I told my child I was going to do.

[27] I don't lecture a lot.

[28] I don't use a lot of words.

[29] I don't shame them.

[30] I just do what I told them I was going to do.

[31] I don't have a problem with being very firm and matter of fact and saying, oh, that, that is not happening in my home.

[32] But I'm in complete control of myself.

[33] I'm not taking it personally.

[34] I'm not getting freaked out.

[35] What I add to that is, oh yeah, that's not happening in my home, but here's what I could use your help with.

[36] Here's what you can do.

[37] Whenever I say no to inappropriate behavior, I like to say yes to appropriate behavior.

[38] I have no problem with a mom saying, look, you've got three chores to do.

[39] I do three, I run three services in this home.

[40] A taxi service, a chef's service, and I do your laundry.

[41] So you do your three chores.

[42] I will feed you, take you places and do your laundry, right?

[43] And then I have no problem at all.

[44] If the kids don't do their chores, I'll withhold one of those.

[45] And I don't mind withholding food sometimes.

[46] Your kids aren't going to die.

[47] Now again, use this with wisdom.

[48] We're not talking kids with diabetes or some kind of health issue.

[49] I'm not going to withhold food for days at a time.

[50] But I'm not fixing every meal for a special meal for kids demanding things and isn't doing something that I have asked, right?

[51] There's nothing personal about that.

[52] I'm just saying this is how I roll in my home.

[53] I don't need you.

[54] Look, when you get to the teen years, what I told Casey, our son was, I don't expect that you will like the sound of my voice in the teenage years.

[55] And what I knew is I probably wouldn't like his voice either.

[56] But our teen years were awesome because we had worked on this a lot prior to that.

[57] But when he was a teenager, I didn't have a problem saying no, because I don't need you to like me, right?

[58] I don't need you to be happy with me. I'm completely comfortable being the responsible adult who is your provider and your protector.

[59] And whether you're happy with me or not, right, doesn't change my decision because it's not about me. It's not about my own comfort.

[60] It's not about my control issues.

[61] It's not about my anxiety either.

[62] It is about what is best for my child.

[63] And I just carry that out in as dispassionate a way as possible so that they know, oh, I can trust my mom.

[64] I can trust my dad because when they tell me something, that's what they do.

[65] And there's not a lot of drama around that.

[66] So with that said, I want to go through a situation that's really, really difficult.

[67] And you're going to be stretched by it.

[68] You're going to be challenged by a little bit.

[69] And that's what I want.

[70] So thank you for joining the Calm Parents.

[71] podcast.

[72] This is Kirk Martin.

[73] I'm founder Celebrate Calm.

[74] You can find us at Celebrate Calm .com.

[75] If you need help, reach out to our strong -willed son, and he can tell you all about how I parented both before I was calm and in control of myself.

[76] And then afterwards, his name is Casey, C -A -S -C -E -Y at Celebrate Calm .com.

[77] You know the deal by now.

[78] Tell us about your family.

[79] Your kids, kids, ages.

[80] What are you struggling with?

[81] We will reply back personally.

[82] This is not an organization or a company.

[83] It's a family whose passion has helped.

[84] helping you and we take this all personally.

[85] I don't take things personally from my son when he's in a bad mood, but we do take it very personal, personally, when you reach out to us and we will reply back to you and try to help you.

[86] If you want our materials and you need some specific help, Casey will put together a specific package within your budget.

[87] And we get this all the time.

[88] We're like, well, we didn't really believe it.

[89] And I get all these emails.

[90] I'm like, Casey's really awesome.

[91] I'm like, yeah, I know.

[92] He's like your kids.

[93] He's awesome for you.

[94] and he was horrible for us.

[95] You know, I'm kidding, but not really.

[96] That's the way it works, but that's what we're here for us.

[97] So if we can help you, let us know.

[98] If you don't want to reach out, just go to the website.

[99] We've got awesome summertime, we've got summer special, Father's Day special, whether you want to get the Calm Parenting Package, get everything, which is my favorite thing because it's everything for the price of like one visit to a therapist's office, but it's 35 hours of concrete practical strategies.

[100] Anyway, so here's what I wanted to talk about today.

[101] I already went through a little bit of tough discipline.

[102] Love it.

[103] So this is a real -life story from a nice, normal, Midwestern family.

[104] So there's a mom and dad and two sons.

[105] And at dinner one night, the dad asked his more strong -willed son to do something.

[106] And the son says, no, I'm not going to do it.

[107] And so the father replies back and says, I don't know why you have to make everything difficult.

[108] your brother never gives us any problems, to which the strong -willed child flipped his dad off and said, you, dad?

[109] Now, how are you supposed to respond to that?

[110] Do you say, son, I love how you express your emotions?

[111] No, we're not going to say that.

[112] That's not what we're after, okay?

[113] We're also not going to just excuse it.

[114] We're going to deal with it.

[115] But what this Dad did it first is what most of us, if we're honest, would do, which was laid into that kid about how difficult he is and you can't follow simple directions.

[116] And I ask you to do simple things.

[117] How are you going to be successful in life?

[118] And then gave him the harsh consequence.

[119] Go to your room.

[120] You know what?

[121] All video games, all food, done for the month.

[122] Because he's a man like me who gives consequences he can't keep, right?

[123] That's what we do.

[124] And so there are a lot of words exchange, bad words exchange.

[125] although I will tell you as I'm thinking about it, that child dropping the F -bom on his dad is not as harmful as the words that the father said to the son.

[126] Okay.

[127] Now, you separate.

[128] I don't, I don't care about the, I know it's the F -word.

[129] You don't say it to your parents.

[130] We're going to deal with that.

[131] But some of the hurtful words that we say as parents, look, even simple things out of a good heart, like if you would just apply yourself.

[132] That is a brutal statement because the underlying motive that we have or assumption about our child's motives is that they're not even trying.

[133] Now sometimes they're not, but sometimes they are trying, they're just overwhelmed or they need tools.

[134] But most of the time, that phrase itself will engender a lot of anger for your strong -willed child.

[135] So we've got to separate what's really harmful here.

[136] so this is what the dad did laid into the son sent him to his room said all kinds of things about him and how he's a more difficult child and his brother so much easier right now if you want a cane and able type situation in your home we'll just do that so what ends up happening in this situation well the dad feels entirely justified right he's justified i cannot argue with the fact that the dad got upset and laid into his son a little bit you're justified in doing that.

[137] However, I would tell you that it's not helpful to lay into your child and react to him like that.

[138] Just because it's justified doesn't mean that it's right and it doesn't mean that it's helpful.

[139] And that's where I want to get to a higher stage in our relationships.

[140] Look, I'm 55.

[141] I can justify anything at my age.

[142] I've come up with enough excuses.

[143] Give me an example.

[144] I'll come up with a justification for it.

[145] I'm not into justifying things.

[146] I want to build relationships because that's what changes behavior.

[147] So what ended up happening was some goes to his room, son slams the door, and now we've got a justified dad who is completely justified.

[148] My son just told me to F off.

[149] He's justified being angry.

[150] Now the son, I don't know what's going on with the son, but my assumption is for a child to say something like that to his father, something's broken here.

[151] I'm not going to say it's justified, but I might be able to understand it.

[152] Either way, we now have a father and a son, or a mother and a son or a mother and daughter, it doesn't matter.

[153] Now we have a parent and a child separated physically, emotionally, relationally.

[154] nothing good happens after that it doesn't and i would just encourage you to think about your own relationships if you have a boss that you just kind of don't like because he doesn't trust you and he and he doesn't promote you and he doesn't treat you fairly and inside you kind of flip him off if he just came and said he frank or susan you know here's the consequence because i don't really like your attitude around here you're not going to be like oh you know what all of a sudden I feel like pleasing him I think I think my attitude toward my boss just change no it's not going to change because the relationship is broken right so in this case also I'm going to assume that now there's general discord the whole home is now blown up right do you think everybody after that strong old job goes to dinner everybody's going to go back to their meal like okay so what else happened today anybody else want to share something positive from their day or honey, this is a really good meal.

[155] This food tastes so good tonight.

[156] I don't think so.

[157] I think there's going to be a lot of tension and I think dinner's going to be ruined.

[158] And I think there's also going to be a lot of tension between the husband and the wife because they're probably not on the same page.

[159] And at least in our home, I won't say what's in your home.

[160] In our home, it was typically me blowing up at Casey and my wife having to choose between sticking up for her son but if she did that right because if i was being too harsh and she stood up for him which is a natural protective mama bear thing to do well now she's got to worry like well but am i undermining my husband's authority and now i'm on her because you know your son wouldn't talk like this if you weren't so soft and you didn't coddle him so much and then she'd be resentful right back like well we wouldn't have so much tension in our marriage in our home if you didn't come home every day and rile everything up and react personally to every single thing that our son did and notice everything that he does wrong because he can't sit perfectly still at the dinner table and doesn't eat his whole meal and he can't live up to your standards so you're always unhappy that's not real pleasant either that's reality in a lot of our homes so I want to show you a different way because that's what we do I want to show you a different way and it's going to challenge you and I want you to be challenged and I want you to wrestle with these things.

[161] Moms and dads, I don't need you to agree with me. I don't need you say like, wow, that really makes sense.

[162] But I want you to wrestle with it and challenge your assumptions and challenge the way you view situations.

[163] So what if in this situation?

[164] And let's do it this way.

[165] After the dad had exploded and sent his son to his room, because this is reality.

[166] You're going to mess up.

[167] That's normal.

[168] So let's practice resetting.

[169] What do you do after you do?

[170] you mess up?

[171] Well, what if this father, after feeling justified, walking around, digging in about this tough son, has always been difficult, and he and his wife go for a little walk and they're talking about it?

[172] What if he chooses to humble himself?

[173] And I know I've been mentioning this a lot lately, but it's powerful.

[174] Humility is a powerful tool.

[175] Please allow me 30 seconds to address this from my Christian or religious friends.

[176] We love authority.

[177] We love all that justice in our things.

[178] Well, imagine that God never showed humility because that's what he did.

[179] He showed, he was, look, and this is your language.

[180] Give me 30 seconds here.

[181] Now I've got about 10.

[182] You use that.

[183] He is justified, but he chose not to punish for that.

[184] Instead, he chose mercy.

[185] There was a great deal of humility there.

[186] So, dad, mom, whoever it is in this situation.

[187] So dad decides, oh, this kid, why does he do that?

[188] I've got to punish him.

[189] I can't let him get away with that kind of language.

[190] We're not going to.

[191] But dad humbles himself a little bit through gritted teeth and he walks up those stairs to his son's bedroom and he knocks on the door and there may not be a response or there may be a grunt where there might be another FU coming right back at him.

[192] I don't know.

[193] But dad then proceeds to say, hey son I'm sorry what I said was unfair and what I I shouldn't have said that and it was hurtful and I apologize listen I'm going to go walk the dog right now and I'd like you to join me when you're ready and here's my promise I will just listen to you and I will not lecture you so if you want to join me come on out when you're ready and we'll just go and walk and that dad just did something very beautiful because he invited his son into a relationship and he invited him to speak to listen to communicate with him because look when you send your child to your room you just cut your child off from the very person who has the wisdom and tools to actually help him i want your kids coming to you i they need you desperately but when we send them away from us now who are they going to go to they're going to post on Facebook book and Instagram and talk to their friends?

[194] Well, that's probably not going to be all that helpful.

[195] I want them coming to you.

[196] So watch what happens.

[197] It may take a little while.

[198] I don't think that son's going to come right out of his room and say, Dad, thanks for humbling yourself because I said something really awful.

[199] And that was big of you.

[200] I don't think that's probably going to happen.

[201] It might be a little while.

[202] You may have to go downstairs and watch television or do something else, and then your son comes down and maybe you give him a code word.

[203] You know what?

[204] Give your child a code work.

[205] That is a fantastic tool.

[206] Casey teaches that to kids all the time at school assemblies is using the code word.

[207] Hey, son, when you're ready, just come down and use, and then just give him a code word of something he likes.

[208] Maybe it's his favorite soccer player, football player.

[209] Might be some favorite artist, his favorite musician, right?

[210] You come down and say pop smoke, right?

[211] I don't know why it was top of mind, but it just was.

[212] Most of you aren't going to know who that was.

[213] It's because I'm volunteering at a community center.

[214] And I'm full only invested in that.

[215] And so I don't care what your code word is.

[216] It could be anything.

[217] Could be football.

[218] It could be bad.

[219] You want to go, you want to go walk the dog, right?

[220] Because that's a lot easier than, Father, I'd like to have a discussion with you about dropping the F bomb on you earlier.

[221] Like, that's just hard.

[222] Let, like, lessen the boundaries.

[223] That's not the right word, but it's break down the walls, break down the barriers, right?

[224] So that there's less of a barrier.

[225] So if he just comes down, like a lot of times at our camps that we ran for kids, I would hold up a football and say, when you're ready, let's go play catch.

[226] And sometimes the kids would come in and they just hold up a football.

[227] Well, that was a code word for me. I used code words all the time with Casey, code actions.

[228] So he didn't have to really talk.

[229] It was just like that means my son wants to talk to me, so outside we go.

[230] to watch, I guarantee you when this finally happens, you're going to walk, and it's going to be awkward, it's going to be awkward, because dad's going to be waiting for the son to apologize for saying those things.

[231] And I get that, but be patient, live in the discomfort, and walk, because you're walking right next to, I'll say this for the parents, you're walking next to your child, and I promise you, as your kids get older and older, you're going to look back and wish you would take in those moments, instead of sending them away in anger or frustration, that you are walking next to them.

[232] There's something powerful about that image and you're walking next to them.

[233] And I promise you two things are probably going to happen.

[234] Number one, child would probably come out with an apology.

[235] You know why?

[236] Because you apologized first.

[237] Why?

[238] Because you're the leader in the home and because you're the bigger person and you lead by example and because you needed to apologize because you did say things that were hurtful to your child.

[239] and you, you, I'm not, there's no blame and no guilt in anything we do, but you contributed probably to this whole relationship.

[240] There's something in us.

[241] I'll just make it about me. I didn't like my son.

[242] I was anxious about his future.

[243] I didn't like the way he did things.

[244] I didn't like a lot about him.

[245] And until I learned to accept him on a very deep level, nothing really changed.

[246] And some of you are holding that and there's resentment and there's fear and there's all these things about how difficult this child has been and it's cost you time and money and just frustration although i'll tell you this child has helped you grow up and without this child you would not have become as mature as you are we're ripped out all of your hair and if you embrace this you will change entirely as a person but i guarantee that out will come an apology now it may not sound the way you want it to but he's probably going to say dad i'm sorry no i shouldn't use those words and I shouldn't have said that to you.

[247] And inside you're like, darn, wait, you shouldn't have your little jerk.

[248] But that's when you're the big person again, you're like, I appreciate that, accept your apology, son.

[249] And then if you want to break the ice, you can say, son, I know that only came out because there's stuff under there.

[250] You're hurt or you're frustrated with me. And I know I've played a role and I'm not even sure exactly what I've done.

[251] But I'd like to listen to you.

[252] And you know what will probably come out of that child's mouth.

[253] If you give them enough time, it may not be the first night when you go for a walk.

[254] It may take a couple times.

[255] It's going to come out, Dad, Mom, I don't feel like you like me as much as you like my brother or my sister.

[256] Or if they're an only child, I don't feel like you like me that much.

[257] And then you know what you can do?

[258] You can own up to it and say, you know what?

[259] I love you every bit as much as I love your brother, your sister.

[260] But I do struggle to connect with you.

[261] I've struggled to connect with you because we're either so much alike, right, that I see myself in you and all of the mistakes I made and I love you so much that I don't want you making the same mistakes.

[262] And so unfortunately, I've been on you so much and I ride you and I ride you and I'm on you all the time.

[263] And it feels like you can never please me and like I'm always on you about the negative things and I fail to see the positive things.

[264] And son, I want to apologize to you because that wasn't right.

[265] And if I were you, I'd be hurt.

[266] And so I want to work on that.

[267] And I'm going to work on that.

[268] That's a beautiful thing to say if it's true.

[269] Now, it could be, son, you're so different for me. I don't get it.

[270] Like I, whatever it is, I've always been a people pleaser.

[271] And I grew up in a home.

[272] And maybe I was, I was afraid of my parents.

[273] So I just did what they said.

[274] and yet you're so independent, you're creative, and you march to the beat of your own drum, and I've had trouble understanding things, and so unfortunately, I've misunderstood your motives, and I think I've made some wrong assumptions about you, and for that I am sorry.

[275] Or it could be, yes, I do struggle to connect with you, and I know it feels like I like your brother more than I like you.

[276] It's not that.

[277] It's just that I've struggled, and I have my own anxiety and my own control issues and I want to work on that son here's what I'd like to come up with I'd like to find and look this can be mother and daughter mother and son it doesn't matter but I'm just using a father and son so I'd like to come up with one activity one activity that you love doing something you're interested in and I'd like to and this is a word no BS program I'd like to enter into that you don't have to use those words with your child but I want to do that with you I want to understand why that means so much to you.

[278] I want to follow your curiosity, right?

[279] And that's a lot of the no BS stuff of like I want to, there's a releasing in that.

[280] I release you from the expectation that you need to be just like me. Son, I release you from the expectation that you have to do things the way that I do it or that you have to be just like me. And there's a lot of deep acceptance in here.

[281] And dads, especially since we've got Father's Day coming up, I know, and look, this, I hope this does not offend you at all.

[282] I know some of you have kids that are very difficult to connect with, and some of you have kids that you may think are like a little odd or weird, and they're in all kinds of stuff.

[283] And for me, look, I'll make it about myself again.

[284] I was an athlete growing up.

[285] I was into normal, regular sports, and Casey just wasn't.

[286] And so I tried and tried, because I wanted him to be on team sports, and I tried to get him into tee ball and baseball and soccer and all the things and football and everything that I played, just wasn't interested.

[287] And your kids have very unique passions at times.

[288] They're curious about things.

[289] Follow their curiosity.

[290] I won't belabor this because many of you've heard it before.

[291] But Casey's thing when he was young, he loved cars.

[292] He just loved cars, the sound of cars, what they look like, what they smelled like, everything with it.

[293] And so I started doing what we called agenda -free time every Saturday morning.

[294] I would take him to a car dealership so he could look at the car and we could test drive the car and I hated it.

[295] But it helped us bond because it wasn't me trying to change him.

[296] It was me taking an interest in something he was curious about.

[297] And I entered into it through my discomfort and through my disdain of having to talk to car dealers about like, yeah, we're really interested in a car.

[298] We'd like to take that out for a little test drive if we could, which was really code for.

[299] We would drive it as fast as we could.

[300] And when Casey was about 13 or 14, I would just take him to huge parking lots and let him drive.

[301] I thought him how to drive stick shift at this little Porsche dealership in Tyson's Corner, Virginia.

[302] And do you know all the memories that we have from that?

[303] And that was a big part of it where that day, it wasn't about correcting his behavior and talking about his attitude toward his mother and talking about school.

[304] We simply had time where we began to rebuild our relationship.

[305] and you know when you read i hate saying that you know here's the deal when you change the relationship behavior changes it breaks down walls and i want to end on this these are opportunities not that i want your kids to flip you off but i do hope some of your kids this week i hope you have some conflict so that you can use it as an opportunity to say you know what no more division no more sending my child away from me i'm going to draw my child to me and I'm going to dig in and I'm going to deal with this and I'm going to sorry for this I'm going to grow up and handle this like a mature adult and I want you to do that in your marriage as well because we put all the marriage stuff away well we'll deal with that later no deal with it now grow up be mature and say honey we're not right this isn't what it was supposed to look like and I'm clueless about what to do but I'm willing to do in and do the hard work and change myself so that we have a shot at having what we really wanted so I'm willing to grow up I'm willing to humble myself I'm willing to work on myself honey or son or daughter will you join me in that will you be patient with me in that and can we do this together if you do that you will become a different person your family will be different it is more important than all that discipline stuff I did up front.

[306] Heal the relationship.

[307] Diggin.

[308] If we can help you, get the everything package if you want.

[309] It's got the no BS in there for free.

[310] We're doing that in the special.

[311] It's got the marriage program and about 35 hours of tough discipline, motivating your child, all those things.

[312] Reach out to Casey and we'll help you, but we love you and we thank you for listening.

[313] Bye -bye.